hoping one of you experienced people can allay a fear I've got for taking security (or any other) courses.

As I've stated in a couple of threads I intended to study for and hopefully gain my first security cert sometime this year (still not sure which one despite all the advice I've had so far, sorry guys). However I'm concerned about attending a training course and getting left for dead behind a lab full of more experienced people.

From courses you have attended what is the common ability/experience level and spread?

I think the skill level in any given course is completely random and dependent on who decides to attend.

I will tell you one thing, if you are in a course with a bunch of "bad asses" take full advantage of it. That is the best possible situation to be in. You learn the most from being around people that know more then you. Ask tons of questions. You paid for the course, so take full advantage of it and never think twice about slowing down the class to make sure you understand something.

From my experience there tends to be two main ends of the spectrum for types of attendees. People that are loud mouths that tend to state their opinion or conjecture as facts and try to dominate the class. They often have pony tails (Sorry couldn't help it! :-) ) Then there are the quiet guys, who contain a vast wealth of knowledge, but you have to pry it from them.

First off, obviously, if you're going to be, or can be in the area, ChicagoCon would be the ultimate place to take some courses

As far as boot camps go, I've only done one. I took the CISSP bootcamp from Vigilar Intense School, for whom Clement DuPuis is an instructor and helped develop the course. I was very intimidated going in, knowing that with the 85-70 requirements there would be a lot of seasoned pros in there that just needed the cert to keep their jobs. That was the case, but as oleDB stated, that was probably the best thing for me. It was like having one instructor for the test and about 20 instructors for the real world. As a matter of fact, I've had a couple of job opportunities come along from those fine folks.

The best advice that I could give would be to study as much as possible prior to attending a course, then question, question, question. The worst thing you can do is waste your money by just sitting there while stuff flies over your head. I asked a couple of what I thought were stupid questions only to have a bad ass Navy CISO thank me for doing so afterward because it helped him.

If you do go for the CISSP, CISA or CISM, Vigilar seems to be a great way to go, especially if you can get Clement or Larry Greenbladt as your instructor.

cheers for all the responses, hasn't helped me feel any more confident but knowing others have been through the process and still had positive outcomes should help my nerves

I would love to get to Hacker Halted and other cons but being stuck the other side of the pond makes travel and costs a bit prohibitive. Think my best bet is to try to get to one of the European SANs events events, aiming for the 504 course as a training for the GCIH. Might have to wait till next year to get the funds together though